U.S SUPREME COURT BACKS CHRISTIAN BAKER WHO REBUFFED GAY COUPLE
U.S. Supreme Court backs Christian baker who rebuffed gay couple
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By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory on narrow
grounds to a Colorado baker who refused based on his Christian beliefs
to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, stopping short of setting a
major precedent allowing people to claim religious exemptions from
anti-discrimination laws.
The
justices, in a 7-2 decision, said the Colorado Civil Rights Commission
showed an impermissible hostility toward religion when it found that
baker Jack Phillips violated the state's anti-discrimination law by
rebuffing gay couple David Mullins and Charlie Craig in 2012. The state
law bars businesses from refusing service based on race, sex, marital
status or sexual orientation.
The court concluded that the commission violated Phillips' religious rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
But
the justices did not issue a definitive ruling on the circumstances
under which people can seek exemptions from anti-discrimination laws
based on religion. The decision also did not address important claims
raised in the case including whether baking a cake is a kind of
expressive act protected by the Constitution's free speech guarantee.
Two
of the court's four liberals, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, joined
the five conservative justices in the ruling authored by Justice Anthony
Kennedy, who also wrote the landmark 2015 decision legalizing gay
marriage nationwide.
The
baker case became a cultural flashpoint in the United States,
underscoring the tensions between gay rights proponents and conservative
Christians.
Both
sides claimed a measure of victory. The couple's supporters noted that
the ruling embraced the importance of gay rights and made it clear that
businesses open to the public must serve everyone. The baker's lawyers
said the ruling emphasized that the government must respect religious
beliefs.
"It's
hard to believe that the government punished me for operating my
business consistent with my beliefs about marriage. That isn't freedom
or tolerance," Phillips said in a statement.
"Today's
decision means our fight against discrimination and unfair treatment
will continue," Mullins and Charlie Craig said in a statement. "We have
always believed that in America, you should not be turned away from a
business open to the public because of who you are."
Seventy-two
percent of U.S. adults believe that businesses should not have the
right on religious grounds to deny services to customers based on their
sexual orientation, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday
showed. [L2N1T61CY]
"Our
society has come to the recognition that gay persons and gay couples
cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and
worth," Kennedy wrote.
But
Kennedy said the state commission's hostility toward religion "was
inconsistent with the First Amendment's guarantee that our laws be
applied in a manner that is neutral toward religion."
In
one exchange at a 2014 hearing before the commission cited by Kennedy,
former commissioner Diann Rice said that "freedom of religion, and
religion, has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination
throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust."
Kennedy
said the commission ruled the opposite way in three cases brought
against bakers in which the business owners refused to bake cakes
containing messages that demeaned gay people or same-sex marriage.
SESSIONS HAILS RULING
Republican
President Donald Trump's administration, which intervened in the case
in support of Phillips, welcomed the ruling. "The First Amendment
prohibits governments from discriminating against citizens on the basis
of religious beliefs," Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a
statement.
The
decision made it clear that even if the court ultimately rules in a
future case that bakers or other businesses that sell creative products
such as florists and wedding photographers can avoid punishment under
anti-discrimination laws, most businesses open to the public would have
no such defense.
Of the 50 states, 21 including Colorado have anti-discrimination laws protecting gay people.
The
case marked a test for Kennedy, who has authored significant rulings
that advanced gay rights but also is a strong advocate for free speech
rights and religious freedom.
"The
outcome of cases like this in other circumstances must await further
elaboration in the courts, all in the context of recognizing that these
disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to
sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to
indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market,"
Kennedy wrote.
In
a written dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by fellow
liberal Sonia Sotomayor, said what mattered was that Phillips would not
provide a good or service to a same-sex couple that he would provide to a
heterosexual couple.
The
litigation, along with similar cases around the country, was part of a
conservative Christian backlash to the Supreme Court's gay marriage
ruling.
Mullins
and Craig were planning their wedding in Massachusetts in 2012 and
wanted the cake for a reception in Colorado, where gay marriage was not
yet legal. During a brief encounter at Phillips' Masterpiece Cakeshop in
the Denver suburb of Lakewood, the baker politely but firmly refused,
leaving the couple distraught.
They
filed a successful complaint with the state commission and state courts
sided with the couple, prompting Phillips to appeal to the top U.S.
court.
Mullins
and Craig said Phillips was using his Christian faith as pretext for
unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation. Phillips and others
like him who believe that gay marriage is inconsistent with their
Christian beliefs have said they should not be required to effectively
endorse the practice.
"Government
hostility toward people of faith has no place in our society, yet the
state of Colorado was openly antagonistic toward Jack's religious
beliefs about marriage. The court was right to condemn that," said
lawyer Kristen Waggoner of the conservative Christian group Alliance
Defending Freedom, which represented Phillips.
The
court will soon have the opportunity to signal its approach to handling
similar cases. The justices on Thursday will consider whether to hear
an appeal by a Washington state flower shop owner who refused to create a
floral arrangement to celebrate a gay wedding, based on her Christian
beliefs.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham
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